circling songlines

  Nullabor from the helm of a "big yellow taxi",  January 1998 I guess that’s how to write Tee Squared Minus One? You see Tee Unsquared never attained its potential. The diagnosis of the mighty chariot wasn’t exactly terminal, but it was something of an organ transplant. It sat there, not for weeks, but for precious days and dollars, and   T 1 disappeared into memory’s shady crevices. For those who know such things, it was the turbo, not the EGR. So far. But who knows the excitements that dwell ahead? But I’m sure there’s plenty of mechanics just hangin’ by the side of the road to Norseman, waiting for my chariot to limp in. Or be towed. Yeah, right. Nullabor. No trees. No mechanics. So yeah, T 2 -1. Tomorrow probably around this time 24 hours away, long pre-sparrowfart, the journey begins. Today,   T 2 -1, in borrowed chariots and time (but isn’t all time borrowed?) I’ll pick up the last supplies from the bustling fringes of the Big City. Revised plans me...

  T Minus One  July 27th, 2025 (or at least it was meant to be posted then but you know ... rural and remote internet ...) I think that’s what we used to call it. T for Take-off. Maybe it was B for Blast-off. Anyway, it hasn’t happened. I purred happily along in my new-old Triton for 120 kms before it died. Partially died, I guess. Financial hassles have been ensuring I haven’t departed yet from the Big Cold City of the South, aka Melbourne. Haven’t-ish. Circulating between daughter units, grandkid (mokopuna) units. Post-colonial sensitivities may mean I have to drop my appropriation of Māori terminology. I thought it was a mark of respect, but aroha mai, … oops … sorry … it may not be. I’ll re-assess linguistics when I return to the Shaky Isles, but for now will stick to the tongue of Mother Canterbury. Not even Cantuar. That’s Latin. I think. I failed School Cert Latin. So yeah. Partially died. Killing time while the Australian Superannuation Demon sorts out ...

enforced downtime   Tomorrow was loosely planned as the day the key turned in a new-to-me ignition and I headed west up the Princes Highway to Adelaide.  I’m sure there should be a apostrophe somewhere in that name, but these days I live in Careys Bay so who am I to argue? I still don’t know how many Careys there were. But there was definitely only one Prince of Wales, after whom the highway was named in the 1920s. So in my loosely planned itinerary, this was the eve of departure. I was though always a little iffy about that date, with a deep suspicion my business transactions would take a little longer than I hoped. In the end it has been more painful than I feared, with, as I noted previously, tears scarcely choked back as I wrestled with faceless voices on a superannuation “help” line. Thanks to the kindness of my daughters, one of whom has even lent me the money to purchase the car, I could leave tomorrow,   but I want to see my battles with officialdom complet...

  Wheels   Triton III near Tullamarine, VIC I suppose if one is to drive around mainland Australia a set of wheels is useful? Not the two-wheels of a Gold Wing that I dreamed of decades ago. I prefer to keep the rain off and the road under four wheels these days. Besides a Gold Wing would have been crap on some of the roads I'll be taking. I could have brought my kiwi wheels over but the red tape could delay the trip by a good few months. Nah. Some time back I began poring over the interweb, comparing models, set-ups, prices, swings and roundabouts.   Reliability, fuel consumption, price, location. Narrowed my search down to an early model Nissan X-Trail. I bought a Triton. As you do. Sort of a non-identical twin to my kiwi one. Nice and shiny, with a lightbar. I’ve always had driving lights on cars for ’roo spotting, but   as this was the only Triton readily available at the right price, a lightbar it is. And brand new tyres though I suspect they'r...

  Shalom   The stresses of hours – seven, heading for eight – spent chasing ignis fatuus across etherland, stuttered to an unproductive end. Potentially unproductive. Helpful public librarians helped me transmit documents to offices unseen. Far beyond new-found Planet Nine. On a Saturday. Thank you for contacting us. We value your custom. We will get back to you in the next millennium. Or before the Second Coming. Whichever comes last. Thank God for old friends. An afternoon of convivial memories, laughter, voices raised in joy not torment. Nightmare of bureaucracy abates. Heavens to Betsy – or Murgatroyd –   I even forgot the All Blacks were playing. They won without my help. Sleep. Ah, sleep. One thing I do well. Until I don’t, often by stupid o’clock, but never mind. At the risk of sounding pious, I like to do the churchy thing on Sunday. And no, I am not one of those   – I’ll say it – pretentious clergy who feel the need to wear a stupid plastic col...

Sovenga vus a temprar ma dolor   Yeah, alright, I cut and pasted that. My Spanish is limited. My mediaeval Spanish all the more so. As in I have zilch. Nada. Kahore. But according to Dante, Arnaut Daniel, a twelfth century troubadour, thought Purgatory was nasty: “ Sovenga vus a temprar ma dolor. ” Some dude called Arnaut Daniel was kind of keen to get out of there. So: a pretty mean and nasty place? “I've heard that I'm on the road to purgatory / And I don't like the sound of that” sang David Byrne and Natalie Merchant (of 10,000 Maniacs), channelling Dante. Yeah, nasty enough. But what would 10,000 Maniacs or even Dante know? They haven’t sat on the phone or experienced an online Australian government form-filling session to access their superannuation. I have. I rang my Superannuation Mob and they told me it was easy. I just needed an Australian bank account. And to be in Australia. No worries. Opening the bank account was easy. I sashayed into the Bendig...

  … all ye who enter here   It is little surprise that mere mortals (like me, unfortunately) abandon hope as they enter the jaws of bureaucracy. Being of course a stoic sort of a bloke I allowed the events narrated here to pass me by unruffled, unfazed. I remained cool, calm, collected, savouring the moments for the learning that they brought to the narrative of my life. I learned to lie, too. Ejected from the plane at Tullamarine, I passed relatively peacefully through the maelstrom of humanity. Pushing and shoving and crying in the No One’s Land of Arrivals. Okay, I queued for ten minutes at the wrong luggage conveyor belt, which slowed the process down a little, but then all was smooth sailing. My face was clearly an honest: I passed into public spaces, my suitcases un-examined. Off I strode, confidently, for my first Australian flat white in twelve months. Thank you, Hudsons, Then set about restoring connectivity to the outside world. There on my phone was the app icon, ea...

  Departures, arrivals, despairs and elations The bold wiggly lines show my journeys in the past .. .   (July 16th and 17th)   Call me crazy but my preferred arrival time for a scheduled departure is about three hours early. A coffee, a thought, an ascent into stillness. All these in preparation for cattle handling. Coats off, shoes off (if they’re Naughty Shoes), digital frisking … Mooo. Baleful stare; no further resistance permitted. Levered into a shoebox. Ignore neighbour. No “Hi,” no smile, no “nice day for it.”   Existential aloneness at three centimetres. No I don’t want a bloody cookie. They used to be called biscuits in my country before American colonization. Okay. Recolonization. My lot colonized too. (And is there a relationship between colonization and colon? Back door? Hmm. Much time for thinking, levered into a shoe box of silence). Ah … but the rare joys of a good hotel. Turns out I had a $40 credit with the pre-paid booking. A ...

It must all begin somewhere. And end I guess, but I can’t write about that. Somewhere. That could be the whole “when a sperm met an egg” (in Kileleshwa I think but … let’s skip that …*Shudder*). I think it better start a couple of decades later. Finishing a degree, wondering what would come next, setting of with a vague dream of riding a Gold Wing  around Australia, jackarooing, finding love, whatever. Some new-found faith dimensions, too, but they were kind of parallel. It never happened. I knew how to ride motorbikes, horses, even how to grub thistles, but bugger-all else. Apart from a degree-worth of some sort of knowledge of literature and religious studies. But I was incapable of flogging myself off for job interviews. Selling family photos door to door up the West Coast to Marble Bar? That one fell through. Attaching the felt to pool tables? That did too. Attaching press stud buttons to women’s tennis skirts. That one didn’t last long, not least because I lost...